


vessels of vessels

by rottenhour



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Angst, Dissociation, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Lio Fotia Whump, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29706225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rottenhour/pseuds/rottenhour
Summary: Lio is not just empty, he’s broken, and he’s not sure if there are enough pieces left to be put back together.
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	vessels of vessels

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: no beta, no peace.

Lio is falling.

His stomach lurches, nausea rising along his throat as his grip on the building’s edge gives way, succumbing to gravity’s lure. His ears are ringing from the fire truck sirens and the collective baying of his name through his communicator; the horrible noise blasts in his head, sending stabbing bolts of pain through his brain, so painful even his eyes start to sting. The bright emergency lights sear his nerves like staring straight at midday’s sun.

The sensation is similar to, during the second Great World Blaze, when the dimensional rift had closed, had suctioned all the heat and left him frigid in the unforgiving, vacuum cold of space. 

The pit had grown into a gaping, gnawing hole, and reflexively—physically—he had reached out, desperate, silently begging it not to go, not just yet. He hadn’t known what it would feel like, losing that, losing himself, in all the intimate ways in which they were connected, where those fissive little tendrils had wrapped themselves into knots with his own soul, but surely they unwound. Flames had seeped from his body, separating, the sensation of loss so startling and visceral as his Promare expelled from his limbs, arching in the air, and suddenly he was alone, alone, alone.

He screams in his mind, his voice not working in the shock of agony, the horrible weightless feeling in his stomach fades from his awareness, fall forgotten, his focus devotes to reaching out, calling out to nothing, because _nothing answered I am alone alone ALO_ — 

Lio hits something, hears a sickening crunch, and blacks out.

  
  


_____

He wakes up in pain. 

It feels strange, this kind of pain. Dark and suffocating, sudden and overwhelming isolation—this is raw, aching absence. 

When bonded with the Promare, pain had been fleeting, almost inexistent. It had healed and protected him. Wrapped in his chest, rocking with his heartbeat, propelled by each expansion of his lungs, crowding and filling up empty pockets between organ and flesh. Gliding along his skin, surrounding the flexion and the sparking of his nervous system. Sunk deep in the crevices, with the mental echo as it had crystallized an unbroken shell around him in astonishing breadth and detail. 

The enormity of it could not be contained, demanding to be set free. 

And he had basked in it, a blessing of certainty. 

Now, he has to think, to check, to make sure. 

He is alone. 

Alone.

Dread climbs up his stomach, searing his chest and head, until his breathing is wretched and his temples pound. He doesn’t know where he is, can’t decipher what is in front of him, heavy and dense in a dilapidated fog without a picture. 

He wants to curl up, like a wounded animal hiding it’s underbelly. Wants to be whole again, and to not be so fragile—like he could be torn apart in seconds, could break by an angry touch or a bad breath of tainted air, or choke on his food, or bleed out from the smallest cut because he heals so slowly now—

 _Alone_.

The ache in his joints flare in agony, crisscrossing and writhing. It claws at exposed skin, sharp and angry. Desperate, but directionless and churning low in his gut. Something smells foul and filthy. He can taste it, disgusting and runny on his tongue, on his teeth, dripping from his chin. There is protest at the back of his mind—not quite reaching his lips because his throat is torn inside, begs for anyone to hear, but no one listens. 

He hurts, so terribly.

Tears bud up in Lio’s closed eyes, beading futilely through his eyelashes. 

He reaches inside instead for help, again and again, tries to reconnect with something that isn’t there anymore. 

  
  


_____

  
  
  


A solid weight is holding him down on both arms, legs, and his midsection. There is indiscernible, frantic movement everywhere and all around, whistling in his ears, and a sting from prodding invasive fingers. He lays where he is; his eyelids are too heavy to move. A cold grip turns from painful to almost slack, to some kind of petting to his hair that is supposed to be soothing but only leaves him claustrophobic. 

Because he remembers being trapped like this; it festers to the forefront of his brain—a recall of hissing from pressurized doors on a sterile background, of scrutiny and tests, of slamming against a hard floor, of freezing cages and cuffs, of mocking laughter and ashes and _stay down, runt_. 

Oxygen refuses to enter his lungs—he scrambles for every drop of it, every beat of his heart. The visible memory viciously claws at him, and he can nearly register the gnawing frostbite tearing into him as if he was just hit with a bullet, as if mummified in ice once again. 

Someone has him _caught_ , he panics. They’re going to steal him away. 

Every instinct screams to fight back, to retaliate. Voices murmur worrying words and numbers he cannot decipher beneath the garble. His spine recoils against the strain to break away, to twist sideways to freedom—he’s too delirious, strength sapping.

Lio growls and attempts to lash out, pinned by his assailants, but his voice gives out with a weak gurgle.

He can hear it now, a question grossly crooning and distinct, _where are you hiding the Burnish?_

Never; he’ll never tell them what they want to know.

Sweat bristles on the nape of his neck while his fingers grow numb, knowing of the Burnish settlement nestled in the wastes, tucked underneath detritus and stone. Their place would fall right out of notice, and no person casting an eye for volcanic activity would recognize. They would be safe from discovery so long as he remains here, mute. 

Then the ever-present pounding of Lio’s pulse slows, replacing itself with a dim hum until only silence. Exhaustion; the blunted aftermath of an act completely outside his control.

There is nothing worse in the world than these last few milliseconds of flickering consciousness, than the swell of white-hot terror, surging through him as he goes loose and limp. 

  
_____

  
  


  
Blurry shapes, distant sounds. 

Lio dreams about nebulas twirling in darkness, of cold so deep it stitches into his mind. He dreams of streaking comets and effervescent stars searing into his being, of bright-blue hues, of static sound cresending into a goofy laugh so unabashed and sweet it sticks with him. 

Lio dreams of beauty in broken pieces, of beauty in the abstract: the asymmetry of a bold smile, the specific way street lights reflect off everything in the rain, the smell of a lake during blooming spring, embers smoldering and catching in the wind, opportunity and safety and warmth—and _goodness_. 

These are beautiful things.

Lio dreams about fractures and fire and _loss_ , so strong and potent that he wants to wake and carve the pain out and pull in the warmth across his chest where there is nothing, but his hands won’t move, eyes won’t open. Distant and sore, the pain knocks through the thick wall of haze, thrusting him back into reality for only a momentary respite until he drifts away again. It’s a constant throbbing inexorably crushing him.

Lio dreams of sleek black coating his skin, melding to his body, of a tittering cacophony in his ears to keep him company, of the swell of power thrumming in every cell. 

These are the worst. 

Because as he basks alight in the blaze, as he relaxes, as he loses grip on reality and lets himself forget it is just a dream, right then, the fire slips from his fingertips—and no matter how far he tries to reach, how hard he tries, the fire is taken away from him. 

Nothing seems beautiful anymore. 

He’s so weary from searching for a presence long gone. Lying there, still and quiet, he is dragged into nothingness—time escapes him. His chest feels empty too—no, _open_. Caved out and hollow like anything could pass through. The gaping emptiness widens, wider and wider, impossibly wide.

Vaguely, he is aware of someone vocalizing in his direction, calling his name in the black expanse, and the voice is familiar unlike his captors from before. A single thread of conscious thought winds its way through the pit of loneliness to coil around the edges of his mind. The voice is pleading; he reasons he should answer to an effect but the simple thought of reaching out for it tires him. So he dismisses it—just his head, spouting nonsense as it shuts down. Babbling in the darkness.

He keeps dreaming.

Lio dreams of dying. 

He is tired, so very tired, and he doesn’t want to go—but he’s so tired. The emptiness all but consumes him now, still taking and taking and taking, never satisfied, never filled—and he cannot feel anything.

He begins to fade to the void again, and he surrenders without objection.

  
  
  


_____

  
  


  
“Lio?”

Lio dreams of moving, images flashing, disconnected and broken. A facility, doors, people, and weak, lop-sided heartbeats.

“Lio, please.”

Waking slowly, he strains and takes in the dim room he’s in: drawn curtains keeping the moonlight from getting in, plain décor, paintings on the wall and a thin powder-blue comforter drawn up to his chin. The pillow under his face is soft and smells clean. There is white noise where his thoughts used to be—he turns his head a tiny fraction, grimaces in his effort, and blinks the rawness out of his eyes to figure out what that green glow is. It’s a clock, but it doesn’t really matter because Lio can’t make sense of the spill of numbers anyway.

He looks up warily at the ceiling while his vision blurs with black, snowy dots—pain doesn’t reach him. Lio blinks again and feels cold, blinks and stares ahead. Emptiness tears open his heart and collapses his lungs.

“We’re right here.”

There’s someone whispering next to his head, squeezing his hand, but he doesn’t care.

He closes his eyes and slips under.  
  


  
  
_____  
  
  


  
  
Lio wakes, and stares, and falls asleep.

He dreams about pain and his tissues bursting apart, of flesh tearing open and peeling off concrete.

Lio wakes up and stares ahead, and doesn’t try to talk or give any information because his voice is gone and his throat is minced.

Someone sits with him every day. They speak and keep him company but he can’t hear what they’re saying. They come in when the light beyond the curtains begins to go up, bright and shiny, heading up towards the top of the sky and afterwards falling down, down, falling down a building and crashing and hitting the ground and—

Lungs stuttering, he shakes and shakes and the comforter slips down from his shoulders. 

Something smooth wipes his brow, resting a bit on the side of his face, brushing his bangs, and pressing against his cheek in a way that is so tender it soothes the convulsions of his chest—the palpitations of his heart slows and the adrenaline lowers to normal levels. And he wonders if he’s finally gone mad, if a straw finally broke, because he’s empty and alone and he doesn’t understand why they’re exhibiting such kindness to a prisoner. 

He doesn’t speak.

A spider makes its way along the wall, slowly crawling upwards, slow and relentless, a black shape on grey.

Lio stares at it and feels calm, feels numb.  
  


  
  
_____  
  
  


  
  
Counting out by the rises and falls of sunlight, Lio cycles through periods of awareness and resting and near complete torpor. 

One evening, the air smells of roses; he wakes up to a pretty bouquet in a vase of water and bright balloons.

Lio notices the curtains are open and stares at the sky, open and unobstructed. Today the sunset looks redder than orange, more like fire and blood. He’s a puddle on the bed and articulating thoughts is like trying to wade through syrup with a blindfold on, but enough registers for him realize that he’s not holed away in a detention center, but attached to various strange machines and an IV and braces. That fact brings immense relief—even if he’s still drugged up, he’s significantly more cognizant.

It’s pin silent, nothing but a heart monitor and the hum of the air conditioning. The breathing machine is loud. It sucks in air and decompresses on a timer, and it sounds lurid in the room. 

A hard click rouses his attention, followed by quiet shuffling on the floor. On his back with the casts and bandages on his body and head, he's unable to turn around to see who it is—he finds he doesn’t have to when the person leans over the bed railing into his view. 

"Hey, buddy, you there?"

Galo. It’s Galo. Galo is here and he’s in a hospital. Blue eyes shining with the sunlight coming from behind him, there are stress lines etched on his skin and his forehead creases worryingly.

Lio tries “G’lo”, and cuts of with a wet cough and then a hum, incapable of anything else. 

“Okay, you’re okay. Maybe no talking now,” Galo shushes him, carefully. 

He opens his mouth again and suddenly, he can’t see clearly anymore. Throat seizing, hot and heavy, and for all lack of regard for words, he can hardly untangle the mess of emotions. 

It’s not a connection to something else he’s struggling for, but a connection to himself. There’s a feeling that should be available to him, but isn’t. Like watching a lit fireplace, but finding it cold to touch. Lio blinks away tears. He understands, in the moment, that they aren’t the product of overwhelming soreness. They’re tears of grief. Grief that reaches down deep enough to make him want to retch. Worse, he’s not just empty, he’s broken, and he’s not sure if there are enough pieces left to be put back together. 

He sniffles, harder, and bites down on his tongue to stop the sob from breaking out. 

Galo smiles patiently, lifts a hand to curl it around Lio’s wrist all loose and sweet, and presses his dry lips to Lio’s hand, kissing each jut of knuckle. 

Lio knows his face is blotchy, flushed red and spotty, he can feel the ugly blush hot on his cheeks. And his chest still aches, feels like the ribs caved in and pureed his lungs, but he can still breathe. And his eyes are stinging and gummy from crying, but Galo is wiping away the tears faster than they can fall.

They’re fixing it.

**Author's Note:**

> Lio makes a full, safe recovery, eventually; it takes a lot of Galo-brand medicated kisses to get him through it. 
> 
> (Burning Rescue brought the balloons, Galo set the flowers, and Gueira and Meis spent every morning with him)
> 
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/rottenhour)


End file.
